West Plains Bank and Trust Company's Debit Card transaction processor, TransFund, has been notified by the fraud analytics group of a fraud scheme currently occurring in the mid-section of the United States.

Debit cardholders are receiving phone text messages stating their card has been deactivated. Cardholders are instructed to call a phone number to confirm their information. When the cardholder responds, they are asked for their card number, expiration date, and PIN.

Cardholders should not respond to these messages.

If you feel you are a victim of this fraud scheme, you should contact the bank immediately to have your card closed. If it is currently outside our normal operating hours, please contact the TransFund after hours Hot Card Service at 800-791-2525.

As always, please feel free to contact the bank directly if you have questions or concersn at 417-256-2147.

12/22/2011

E-mail Claiming to Be From the FDIC - December 21, 2011

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports of fraudulent e-mails that have the appearance of being sent from the FDIC.

While the e-mails exhibit variations in the "From" and "Subject" lines, the messages are similar.

The fraudulent e-mails are said to notify recipients of "recent changes in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance coverage." They state, "During the period from December 31, 2010 to December 31, 2012 all the money in a "noninterest-bearing transaction account" are fully insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Please note, that this is a temporary measure besides the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's general rules.

The term "noninterest-bearing transaction account" includes a usual checking account or demand deposit account on which no interest is paid by the insured depository institution."

A hyper link is provided (the Web addresses (URL) vary widely) to a Web site that supposedly provides "more details of this temporary FDIC coverage for transaction accounts."

This e-mail and link are fraudulent. Recipients should consider the intent of this e-mail as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, or to load malicious software onto end users' computers. Recipients should not click on the link provided.

The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers or business account holders.

The Federal Reserve Bank has confirmed that there currently are fraudulent emails circulating claiming to be a public service announcement jointly distributed by the Federal Reserve Banks in collaboration with the Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
The email message encourages financial institutions and their employees to visit a rouge website to download the “announcement.”
These are fraudulent emails! Do not click on any of the links or forward to other recipients.
A sample of the email is below:

This message is to be delivered to: Your Name at Your Organization
In an effort to notify and update all financial institutions and their employees of the recent fraud scenarios The Federal Reserve Banks in collaboration with IC3 and NW3C issued the following message:
A Public Service Announcement has been issued by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which is a joint partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Financial Institutions are encouraged to share this public service announcement with account holders.
Visit (Fraudulent link was inserted here) for exact instructions and details on fraud scenarios.
IC3's website provides a vehicle for consumer's to file Internet crime complaints. Complaint information will be combined with other related subject information and referred to federal, state, and local law enforcement for the initiation or enhancement of investigations.

We have received a report that an email, which would appear to be from Visa, is circulating claiming irregular activity has been detected on the recipient's credit card. The email then instructs the receiver to complete an attached form to send back to them. This form requests your entire Visa Credit Card number, card expiration date, security code, ATM PIN, and your Verified by Visa password. DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE!Please be aware that Visa would never send you a correspondence like this or request that you verify any information through an email. If you give out any card information in a phishing attempt like this, please contact the issuing bank as soon as possible to close the card and issue you a new one. For more information on this scam, please visit the ABA Press Room.